Should I go to Journalism School?

Hey guys, I’m new to the community here. I seem to be at a crossroads in my life and I don’t know which direction to go in, so I figured that I would inquire about it on this site.

I have planned on being a lawyer since I was a kid. It always seemed like a profession that perfectly matched my skills and people have been telling me that I would be a good lawyer since middle school. I have already graduated with honors from a well-respected state university with a B.A. in History and taken the LSAT. I have been working as a paralegal at a law firm for a few months now.

The problem is that I have already decided that I don’t think that law school is for me. It sucks and has been hard to admit because I feel like I have wasted my life up until this point. My entire purpose in life up until now has been to become a lawyer, and now I have realized that I don’t want to do it. I don’t hate it or anything yet. I just have a feeling that I’m going to end up as one of those lawyers that hates their life in 10 years and wants to quit, but can’t due to crippling student loans.

Being out of school has made me realize how much I love to write. I really wish I would have looked more in to being a journalist when I was younger. I did no writing for my school newspaper or anything because I saw no point as I knew that I wanted to be a lawyer (Stupid, I know). At least, that’s what I thought that I wanted to do. I have a friend who works as an editor for a magazine and loves it. I was wondering if there was any way that I could break in to the journalism industry?

Should I take some postgrad journalism classes? Get a M.A. In Journalism? I just want some advice as I think that this is what I am meant to do with my life. Any advice is welcome.

What aspect of law were you interested in pursuing? Because you could get a journalism degree or you could follow a career path that leads to writing intensive jobs. Studying public policy, for example, could lead to jobs involving a lot of writing. There are many areas if study that could lead to writing-intensive jobs.

To be honest, I just wanted to be a lawyer because I wanted to help people. I never wanted to be a social worker or anything. I just liked that lawyers have the opportunity to actually help someone out of a legal jam rather than just giving them advice or volunteering like social workers.

But, actually working in law has made me realize that like 80% of your clients are scumbags regardless of what kind of case they think that they have, when they are usually just grasping at straws for a hand-out. Most of the other lawyers you meet are just in it for the money too, which I did not realize either. I enjoy reading, writing and arguing, so I always just figured that being a lawyer would be the perfect job for me.

What kind of jobs are available after studying public policy? I had not really considered doing that.